Shoppers LOVE a good sale, right? But you may have noticed your results from sales starting to drop. What used to drive people to stores and online in droves, is now creating only a moderate increase in traffic. What gives? Well the issue may lie in a combination of increasing sales frequency and decreasing consumer attention and distractions. In a recent consumer survey, we found that shoppers, especially millennials, feel bombarded with marketing communications and are frustrated with too many irrelevant emails - so much so that they find it more frustrating than even shipping costs! Their preference is 1-3 marketing emails a month.

But there’s good news here - really good news actually. Shoppers do still love a good sale - they would just rather know about a sale around items they are interested in - such as items they’ve previously carted or items or categories they’ve previously browsed. We call this - a targeted sales series. Behaviorally targeted sale notifications makes it easier for shoppers to shop with your brand and make purchases quicker. And the best part? Sales frequency in the minds of your shoppers will decrease because you are alerting only those who will actually care about the sale. This means sales are no longer white noise and become a revenue booster again!

So let’s get started. We recommend that you break your targeted sales series into three parts.

Sale Introduction If you have customers you know are interested in a product, you can target those individuals by letting them know about your upcoming sale before the price actually decreases. This gives those valuable customers a sale preview so they have the opportunity to snag their desired products before anyone else. For this campaign, you want to focus on shoppers who have browsed an item or category that is included in the sale. Appeal to these shoppers by featuring the products they had previously engage with to make it easier to make the purchase.

Last Chance Sale Mop-UpLast chance sale mop-ups are one of our most powerful revenue generating campaigns. It communicates a sense of urgency for consumers to come back to your website to purchase items they browsed heavily, carted multiple times, or carted and abandoned during the event. You can even include those who you messaged during the sale introduction who have yet to make a purchase in addition to those who actually engaged with your brand during the sale. Read more about Sale Mop-Ups in one of our recent spotlights to get tips on email creative, people to target, success stories, and more!

Sale ExtensionThis campaign re-engages those shoppers who browsed or carted sale items but did not complete their purchase during the valid sale time period. Make them feel special by offering a one-time special sale promo code, alerting them they have qualified for a special sale extension.